National college graduates targeted by Dubai e-Government

The presentation was specifically targeted at qualified national women and was in keeping with the Dubai e-Government objective to educate significant segments of the national community in order to strengthen the foundations of a technologically aware future population in the UAE.

The presentation was held alongside Careers UAE 2001, the country's largest dedicated career fair for UAE nationals, which was organized recently in Dubai. H.H. General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defence Minister visited the Dubai e-Government stand at the fair, where he was briefed on the recent initiatives for recruitment. H.H. Sheikh Mohammed was informed that in the first step to establishing a comprehensive human resources online recruitment system, Dubai e-Government had taken the radical step of accepting CVs of potential candidates only by email during the Careers fair. This would pave the way for an innovative centralized recruitment system that will soon be launched on the Dubai e-Government portal. The stand at the fair also received tremendous response from the young nationals who visited Careers UAE 2001 in search for career opportunities both in the public and private sector.

"Young and educated nationals are the future leaders of the country and will be the decision makers of tomorrow. It is extremely important to educate and inform them of the unified government services, thus providing them with a single gateway for recruitment to government departments. This is also in keeping with H. H. Sheikh Mohammed's vision to ease the lives of people interacting with the government and contribute towards establishing Dubai as a leading economic hub," said Salem Khamis Al-Shair, Director, e-Services, Dubai e-Government. "We have specially focused on young national women at this presentation because as future mothers, they will play a significant role in creating awareness among the upcoming generations."

Al Shair added, "Careers UAE 2001 was an excellent opportunity to meet young national men and women who are graduating from their respective colleges and are on the look out for excellent career opportunities in the government sector."

Over 150 final-year students and faculty members from the disciplines of Business Information Technology and Information Administration of the HCT Women's colleges across the UAE participated in the seminar, which was conducted by Anas Haddad, Content Manager, Dubai e-Government.

Since its launch in October 2001, Dubai e-Government has emphasized its intention to provide essential government services through electronic means within 18 months and offer 70 per cent of all government services through innovative channels by the year 2005. These objectives comprise the Commendable Progressively Achieved Strategic Statement (COMPASS) initiative and are part of the integrated and holistic approach adopted by Dubai e-Government.

The detailed presentation by Haddad underlined the need for integrated government strategies under one umbrella and emphasised the need to view citizens as customers. "Dubai e-Government aims to view the citizen as a valued customer and concentrate on customer focus and community outreach to ensure awareness and sustained willingness for adoption of e-enabled Government services," said Haddad. "As in any customer centric organisation, success can best be achieved by meeting customer requirements and expectations which include choice, convenience, ease, accuracy, trust, responsiveness and value for money."

Elaborating on the various approaches to providing content, he stressed that Dubai e-Government had adopted a constituent centric design and was offering content in terms of information, interaction and transaction, in order to achieve its COMPASS initiative through increasing the awareness and willingness of the community.